There are many products in the market touting quick drying ink capabilities. The investment into an ink that dries quickly was made to aid left-hand writers, those who use pens for creative purposes, and anyone who wishes to eliminate smearing and smudging of their penned creations.

Here’s the kicker. The speed within which an ink will dry is contingent upon a variety of variables:

Users writing pressure when putting pen to paper. The more pressure put on the pen point the more ink laid down on the writing surface, the more ink laid down on the writing surface the longer it will take to dry.

Bold point sizes, like a 1.0mm; will also influence dry time. Think of point size as a hole size. The larger the point size, the larger the nib hole; which means more ink is laid down on the writing surface. The more ink that is laid down on the writing surface the longer it will take to dry.

Paper Stock is another important factor in ink dry time. If a paper has any type of coating it will impact the inks absorption capacity. In other words, if the ink is not capable of being absorbed by the paper it will obviously not dry very quickly.

Ink color is another variable, especially metallic. If you think about the pen nib as an opening through which the ink flows; the wider the opening (1.0mm) the more ink that is placed on the surface. The more ink on the surface the slightly longer it takes to dry. For metallic inks, which are made up of “color flakes”, the nib opening needs to be wide enough to let the ink flow onto the paper. In turn, metallic ink pens will dry a little slower than standard colors.

Zebra took all of these variables into account and worked to optimize its RDI Ink for a variety of surfaces. Below is a chart outlining our dry time on the most commonly used paper stock. Additionally, we have also provided a color vibrancy comparison to exhibit that dry time does not have to infringe on color vibrancy.

Sarasa Third Party Testing

Testing completed by Third Party Lab Facility

Test Procedure: Wrote out with pen, tested, immediately ran finger across line to test for smudging, then tested in 1-second increments.

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